Rick and Morty Season 3
(This article contains spoilers for ALL of Rick and Morty’s
third season!)
After a year and a half of waiting, Rick and Morty’s third season finally
came to a close last Sunday. Was it worth the wait?
While I’m definitely going to need
some time to let the episodes sit before I can properly compare it to the other
two seasons, as of right now I’d say that Season 3 is better than Season 1 and
equal if not better than Season 2. Unlike Season 2 there wasn’t a flat-out bad
episode in the bunch (Interdimensional
Cable 2 remains the series low point for me), just a few that were weaker
than others. Since I didn’t properly review them, I’m going to rank them from
least favourite to best overall, so here we go!
10. Episode 9: The ABCs of Beth
Despite being the weakest episode of
the season for me, there was a lot I enjoyed about this one. Beth has always
been sort of unfairly sent to the sidelines in the family dynamics as most of
the plots not involving Rick and Morty usually focus on Jerry or Summer. Heck,
even when she does get a starring role in an episode she’s usually stuck
sharing it with Jerry. Having her as a part of the central part of the conflict
is something the show really hadn’t done up to this point.
Still, a lot of the focal points of
this episode felt kind of unearned for me. Beth’s imaginary world created by
Rick was neat, but going in there to find some random kid she trapped when she
was little just kind of felt out of nowhere. How the kid managed to survive all
these years ended up being more cringe-worthy than funny, feeling like a joke
more in line with Family Guy than Rick and Morty.
The ending with Rick and Beth finally
getting some one-on-one time was good, albeit a bit rushed, and I also enjoyed
the ambiguity of Beth’s decision in the end, especially how it played into the
season finale. It’s not a bad episode, just not a great one.
9. Episode 4: Vindicators 3: The
Return of Worldender
This semi-parody of both Guardians of the Galaxy and Saw worked pretty well, even if some of
the stuff got pretty shaky. The idea of Rick getting so drunk that he somehow
managed to both solve the problem of the episode as well as become the main
antagonist simultaneously was hilarious, as were his shoddily put together
“puzzles” for the superhero team of the Vindicators to solve.
The real issue with this episode was
the Vindicators themselves. While they had some creative designs (Million Ants
and Crocubot are both great), they all just kind of fell flat, especially as
the episode went on. Throwing in yet another
marriage conflict subplot in a season filled with content about Beth and
Jerry’s divorce and how the characters cope with it was pretty underwhelming,
especially with this being one of only a few episodes in the season that
focused almost exclusively on Rick and Morty.
Plus ending the episode abruptly with
a random Logic cameo was pretty darn stupid.
8. Episode 2: Rickmancing the Stone
When this episode aired people were
pretty upset over it, probably because the previous one was so good and thanks
to the 4 month waiting period between the premiere fans were expecting a little
more.
What they got was a perfectly
serviceable episode inspired by Mad Max with
a lot of good development for Morty and Summer. Morty gaining a temporary
super-muscular arm fueled purely by revenge for the king of the wasteland was
especially hilarious, especially after the stormed the castle apologizing to
everyone he killed along the way. The episode also has one of the best gags of
the season, when Rick’s Robot Morty replacement gains sentience and wishes for
freedom, only to be overridden and completely dismantled seconds later.
Less funny was Summer’s subplot where
she falls in love with the leader of a raiding party, only to leave him when
Rick essentially rebuilds their society. The Beth parallels could’ve been only
a little more obvious if they’d appeared in bright red neon signs.
7. Episode 8: Morty’s Mind Blowers
Now that we’ve got those three out of
the way we can start getting into the real good stuff. Morty’s Mind Blowers was a fantastic alternate to the usual
Interdimensional Cable episode for the season, being a peek into Rick and Morty adventures that didn’t
warrant a full episode.
While just as with the
Interdimensional Cable episodes there were both hit and miss segments, this one
has way more hits than misses. Especially funny were the ones where Morty
accidentally convinces an alien warlord to doubt his religion, only for him to
discover it was all real when it’s too late, as well as Rick building Morty a
helmet that allows him to talk to animals with disastrous results.
I could’ve done without the weird
memory erasing subplot the mind-blowers were built around, but, hey, it worked
better than Jerry’s awful Interdimensional
Cable 2 storyline, so that’s a plus.
6. Episode 3: Pickle Rick
This was easily the episode that had
the most hype surrounding it when it was first announced purely because of how
insane the concept was. Only on Rick and
Morty would you find an episode all about the main character turning
himself into a pickle to escape having to go to family therapy.
And, to their credit, this episode was
about as crazy as we’d hoped for. While we knew going in that Rick would be
facing off against a bunch of rats in the sewers, having him wind up in the
Russian Embassy wasn’t something we expected, but that was what the episode
needed to go from good to great. Seeing a pickle managed to take down an entire
army was hilarious, as was the increasingly weird and fun solutions he would
find to get himself out of problems.
The ending was pretty satisfying as
well with Rick finally showing up to family therapy still in pickle form and
seeing the therapist become the first person to really understand him. Of
course he brushed it off immediately after, but it’s still a good, quiet way to
cap off what is otherwise a very loud episode.
5. Episode 6: Rest and Ricklaxation
The one thing I would do more of in
this season would be have more episodes dedicated to just Rick and Morty on an
adventure together. We only really got three this season, and that’s if you
count Morty’s Mind Blowers.
Despite this, Rest and Ricklaxation is a Rick and Morty adventure that ranks up
with the best of them. Cramming an entire adventure into the cold open was
genius, especially with their extended breakdown afterwards. That opening was a
hard act to follow, but the episode managed by creating an interesting look
into Morty’s psyche, seeing what he would be like without his negative traits.
Seeing his relationship with Jessica finally
progress was a long time coming.
Seeing said negative traits literally
manifest as Toxic Rick and Morty were amazing, essentially being flanderized
versions of the characters that wanted to take over the world with their
toxicity. Seeing them accomplish their plan for a brief period of time was
amazing. While we’ll probably never see them again, they were great one-off
villains.
4. Episode 10: The Rickchurian
Mortydate
Being a season finale, most people
were expecting this episode to focus on Evil Morty, the return of Birdperson,
or something equally status-quo changing. What we got instead was a fun, wacky
battle between Rick and the President, one that I feel will become one of the
better loved episodes once the hype around Season 3 finally dies.
The massive episode-ending showdown
between the two was full of amazing sight gags and crazy action, with nods to
almost every conspiracy in American history. But even better was how the
episode both continued Beth’s story from the previous episode as well as
concluding her and Jerry’s season arcs.
The last scene of the episode is
actually pretty great when you look at it as a contrast to the ending of the
premiere. Rick ends Rickshank
Rickdemption by admitting to Morty he’d only allowed himself to get
arrested as a means to get rid of the Galactic Federation, the Citadel of
Ricks, and Jerry off his back in one fell swoop. Meanwhile, this episode ends
with Jerry forced back into Rick’s life, Beth choosing to side with him over
her father, and Rick ending up the lowest-status person in the Smith household.
What will happen next? Only time will tell.
3. Episode 5: The Whirly Dirly
Conspiracy
A Rick and Jerry episode is not
something I was ever expecting to see from Rick
and Morty, but I’m so glad we got one. Seeing these two characters who were
constantly at each other’s throats in the first two seasons finally come
together and try to understand each other gave a lot of fun material.
The no-death theme park was super
funny and creative (especially after Rick managed to mess it all up as usual),
as was Rick being given the synthetic dampener and turning him into the ideal
airplane passenger (“I want cookies and a 90 minute cut of Avatar!” might be my favourite line of the season). Easily the best
part of the episode though was Jerry’s insane trip through space and time at
the end, a crazy feat of animation that lasted only about a minute, but was
probably the weirdest thing this show has ever done.
Just as good was the B-plot featuring Morty and Beth desperately trying to return Summer to normal size after accidentally turning her giant, which led to an Attack on Titan parody of all things. Morty's final speech to Summer's ex-boyfriend was hilariously sinister, and seeing Beth finally try to be a good mother was satisfying as well.
2. Episode 1: The Rickshank
Rickdemption
Released a few months before the
season actually got started, The
Rickshank Rickdemption set an impossibly high bar for the other nine
episodes, giving the best possible answer to the question Season 2 ended on: how
is Rick going to escape prison?
Like I said before, having it turn out
that Rick only allowed himself to be arrested as a means to get the Federation,
the Citadel of Ricks and Jerry all off his back in one fell swoop was
brilliant. Him escaping by mind swapping with a bunch of different aliens and
Ricks was amazing, as was his final showdown with the Council of Ricks and
Morty’s almost-betrayal.
This episode can also be credited for
the infamous Szechuan sauce situation, which was pretty funny at the time but
now has sort of run its course. Friendly disclaimer: don’t hurt other people in
the name of flavoured corn syrup. That’s all.
1. Episode 7: The Ricklantis Mixup
Picture this: an episode of a show
that only features the main characters in the cold open and post-credits
sequences, instead stars multiple alternate universe versions of said
characters all voiced by the same one guy, has multiple plots all running at
once with none of them feeling like they got too much or too little screentime,
and brings back one of the biggest loose ends left behind from Season 1.
This episode could’ve so easily gone
horribly wrong, but it managed to be not only the best episode of Season 3, but
the best episode of Rick and Morty ever.
Despite having several storylines all
running at once, none felt like they got the short end of the stick and was
unfairly sidelined. The election, the cop story, the Stand By Me Mortys and the candy factory Rick were all paced
perfectly, and it all came together as a perfect cohesive episode. It was
especially great to see these alternate versions of Rick and Morty get starring
roles, as the society of the Citadel was used to make a strong allegory for
race in modern times.
The Evil Morty ending was also a big
surprise for me at least, since I was almost certain that he was a one-time gag
bad guy in Season 1 that was never coming back. The ending shot zooming out
into space with all the dead Ricks and Mortys with Evil Morty’s theme playing
was a brilliant ending to a perfect episode.
So that was Season 3! While it was far
from perfect, it was still Rick and Morty
at its finest, and set a high bar for Season 4 when it shows up in a really
long time.
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